1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cotton harvesters and, more specifically, to a row unit structure for harvesting narrowly spaced cotton plants.
2) Related Art
Cotton harvesters for picking cotton typically include a row harvesting unit having upright spindle drums and doffer columns for picking a row of cotton from plants that enter a row-receiving area in a support housing. The housing is relatively large and carries numerous driven components necessary for the picking and doffing functions. Providing picker row units that can harvest adjacent cotton rows in narrowly spaced cotton rows of fifteen inches (38 cm.) or less without plant damage and cotton loss in one of the rows has been a continuing problem because of the space requirements for the components. Cotton picker units such as shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,497 with picker drums supported in tandem on one side only of the row, or nested row harvesting units as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,403 have provided row harvesting capability for some narrow row spacings, but the reduction has not been sufficient to accommodate very narrowly spaced rows of fifteen inches or less. As row spacings decrease and the area around each row unit decreases, accessing service areas on the row units and providing adequate cotton door and conveying structure become increasingly difficult.
A further problem with current cotton harvesters has been under-utilization of row unit capacity in low yield conditions. In low yield cotton, the row units often operate at only a small fraction of their maximum capacity.